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a
Speaking of Operations-
By IRVIN S. COBB
N0vek
OLD JUDGE PRIEST
BACK HOME
THE ESCAPE OP MR. TRIMM
Wit and Humor
''SPEAKING OF OPERATICmS— **
EUROPE REVISED
ROUGHING IT DE LUXE
COBB'S ANATOMY
COBB'S BILL OP PARE
Miscellany
PATHS OP GLORY
George H. Doran Company
VrnWYOtLK
WH— W» « II HI ' 1 1
TH* NtW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
iSTOK. LXffaX
'^speaking of
Operations
Irvin S. Cobb
I
Jutbtr ^
-Bdui Hmu," "Banff Rtvttd,** Bu., Ete,
mutrations ity TONY SARQ
New York
George H. Dor an Company
CarrmiOBT, 1919^
Wt TliB Ccmris PuBUiaiNO CoMPAMf
Cottricur; 1915^
Bt Gborgb H. Doban CoMrAiif
113795-
r i
f .-'' I- 1
^ ^Speaking of Operations — .^ '
RbSPBGTPULLY DEmCATED
To Two Classes:
TH08B WHO HAVB ALREADY BBSN OPBBATED ON
TH06B WHO HAVB NOT YET BBBN OPBBATBD ON
\
^^ speaking of Operations — '*
CONTENTS
Mamly My (hm
*^ Speaking of Operations — "
ILLUSTRATIONS
Apparently There Was Nobody at Home
Fnn£ifi*t«
He Regarded It as a Suit of Qodies, Bttt I
Knew Better 22
In Whidi I Assumed All Responsibility
for What Was to Take Place - . 36
I Wished to Show How Utterly Indiffer-
eptlWas 50
* ^speaking of Operations^ ' ^
Now that the last belated bill for ser-
vices professionally rendered has
been properly paid and properly
receipted; now that the memory of the
event, like the mark of the stitches, has
faded out from a vivid red to a becoming
pink shade; now that I pass a display of
adhesive tape in a drug-store window with-
out flinching — I sit me down to write a
little piece about a certain matter — a small
thing, but mine own — to wit. That Opera-
tion.
For years I have noticed that persons
who underwent pruning or remodeling at
the hands of a duly qualified surgeon, and
survived, like to talk about it afterward.
In the event of their not surviving I have
no doubt they still liked to talk about it,
but in a different locality. Of all the
readily available topics for use, whether
among friends or among strangers, an op-
eration seems to be the handiest and most
dependable. It beats the Tariff, or Roose-
velt, or Bryan, or when this war is going
to endy if ever, if you are a man talking to
I 111
^^ speaking of Operations — "
Other men; and it is more exciting eYen
than the question of how Mrs. Veraon
Castle will wear her hair this season, if
you are a woman talking to other women.
For mixed companies a whale is one of
the best and the easiest things to talk about
that I know of. In regard to whale$ and
their peculiarities you can make almost any
assertion without fear of successful contra-
diction. Nobody ever knows any more
about them than you do. You are not
hampered by facts. If someone mentions
the blubber of the whale and you chime
in and say it may be noticed for miles on
a still day when the large but emotional
creature has been moved to tears by some
great sorrow coming into its life, every-
body is bound to accept the statement. For
after all how few among us really know
whether a distressed whale sobs aloud or
does so under its breath? Who, with any
certainty, can tell whether a mother whale
hatches her own egg her own self or leaves
it on the sheltered bosom of a fjord to be
incubated by the gentle warmth of the mid-
night sun? The possibilities of the propo-
[131
^^ speaking of Operations — "
sition for purposes of informal debate, pro
and con, are apparent at a glance.
The weather, of course, helps out amaz-
ingly when you are meeting people for
the first time, because there is nearly al-
ways more or less weather going on some-
where and practically everybody has ideas
about it The human breakfast is also a
wonderfully good topic to start up during
one of those lulls. Try it yourself the next
time the conversation seems to drag. Just
speak up in an offhand kind of way and
say that you never care much about break-
fast — a slice of toast and a cup of weak tea
start you off properly for doing a hard day's
work. You will be surprised to note how
things liven up and how eagerly all present
join in. The lady on your left feels that
you should know she always takes two
lumps of sugar and nearly half cream, be-
cause she simply cannot abide hot milk, no
matter what the doctors say. The gentle-
man on your right will be moved to con-
fess he likes his eggs boiled for exactly
three minutes, no more and no less. Buck-
wheat cakes and sausage find a champion
1 13}
* ^Speaking of Operations ' '
IM
and oatmeal rarely lacks a warm defender,,
But after all, when all is said and done,
the king of all topics is operations. Sooner
or later, wherever two or more are gath-
ered together it is reasonably certain that
€omebody will bring up an operation.
Until I passed through the experience of
being operated on myself, I never really
realized what a precious conversational
boon the subject is, and how great a part
it plays in our intercourse with our fellow
beings on this planet. To the teller it is
enormously interesting, for he is not only
the hero of the tale but the rest oi the cast
and the stage setting as well — the whole
show, as they say; and if the listener has
had a similar experience — and who is there
among us in these days that has not taken
a nap 'neath the shade of the old ether
cone? — it acquires a doubled value.
"Speaking of operations " you say,
just like that, even though nobody present
has spoken of them; and then you are off,
with your new acquaintance sitting on the
edge of his chair, or hers as the case may
be and so frequently is, with hands clutched
[14]
*^ speaking of Operations ' *
in polite but painful restraint, gills work-
ing up and down with impatience, eyes
brightened with desire, tongue hung in the
middle, waiting for you to pause to catch
your breath, so that he or she may break
in with a few personal recollections along
the same line. From a mere conversation
it resolves itself into a symptom symposium,
and a perfectly splendid time is had by
all.
If an operation is such a good thing to
talk about, why isn^t it a good thing to write
about, too? That is what I wish to know.
Besides, I need the money. Verily, one al-
ways needs the money when one has but
recently escaped from the ministering
clutches of the modern hospital. There-
fore I write.
It all dates back to the fair, bright morn-
ing when I went to call on a prominent
practitioner here in New York, whom I
shall denominate as Doctor X. I had a
pain. I had had it for days. It was not
a dependable, locatable pain, such as a
tummyache or a toothache is, which you
cam put your hand on; but an indefinite,
* * speaking of Operations ' '
^w
unsettled, undecided kind of pain, which
went wandering about from place to place
inside of me like a strange ghost lost in
Cudjo's Cave. I never knew until then '
what the personal sensations of a haunted
house are. If only the measly thing could
havje made up its mind to settle down some-
where and start light housekeeping I think
I should have been better satisfied. I never
had such an uneasy tenant. Alongside of
it a woman with the moving fever would
be comparatively a fixed and stationary
object.
Having always, therefore, enjoyed per-
fectly riotous and absolutely unbridled
health, never feeling weak and distressed
unless dinner happened to be ten or fifteen
minutes late, I was green regarding phy-
sicians and the ways of physicians. But I
knew Doctor X slightly, haWng met him
last summer in one of his hours of ease in
the grand stand at a ball game, when he
was expressing a desire to cut the umpire's
throat from ear to ear, free of charge ; and
I remembered his name, and remembered,
too, th^t he had impressed me at the time
1161
* ^speaking of Operations — "
as being a person of character and decisicMi
and scholarly attainments.
He wore whiskers. Somehow in my
mind whiskers are ever :::sociated with
medical skill. I presume this is a heritage
of my youth, though I believe others labor;
under the same impression. As I look back
it seems to me that in childhood's days all
the doctors in our town wore whiskers.
I recall one old doctor down there in
Kentucky who was practically lurking in
ambush all the time. All he needed was
a few decoys out in front of him and a
pump gun to be a duck blind. He carried
his calomel about with him in a fruit jar,
and when there was a cutting job he
stropped his scalpel on his bootleg.
You see, in those primitive times germs
had not been invented yet, and so he did
not have to take any steps to avoid them.
Now we know that loose, luxuriant whisk-
ers are unsanitary, because they make such
fine winter quarters for germs ; so, though
the doctors still wear whiskers, they do not
wear them wild and waving. In the pro-
fession bosky whiskers are taboo ; they must
1 17 1
^^ speaking of Operations — '*
,be landscaped. And since it is a recogni2^d
fact that germs abhor orderliness and
straight lines they now go elsewhere to re*
side, and the doctor may still retain his
traditional aspect and yet be practically
germproof. Doctor X was trimmed in ac-
cordance with the ethics of the newer
school. He had trellis whiskers. So I
went to see him at his offices in a fashion-
able district, on an expensive side street.
Before reaching him I passed through
the hands of a maid and a nurse, each of
whom spoke to me in a low, sorrowful tone
of voice, which seemed to indicate that
there was very little hope.
I reached an inner room where Doctor
X was. He looked me over, while I de-
scribed for him as best I could what seemed
to be the matter with me, and asked me a
number of intimate questions touching on
the lives, works, characters and peculiari-
ties of my ancestors; after which he made
me stand up in front of him and take my
coat off, and he punched me hither and
yon with his forefinger. He also knocked
repeatedly on my breastbone with his
[181
^^ Speaking of Operations — **
knuckles, and each time, on doing this, ^
would apply his ear to my chest and listen
intently for a spell, afterward shaking his
head in a disappointed way. Apparently
there was nobody at home. For quite a
time he kept on knocking, but without get-
ting any response.
He then took my temperature and fifteen
dollars, and said it was an interesting case
— ^not unusual exactly, but interesting — and
that it called for an operation.
From the way my heart and other organs
jumped inside of me at that statement I
knew at once that, no matter what he may
have thought, the premises were not unoc-
cupied. Naturally I inquired how soon
he meant to operate. Personally I trusted
there was no hurry about it. I was per-
fectly willing to wait for several years, if
necessary. He smiled at my ignorance.
"I never operate," he said; "operating is
entirely out of my line. I am a diagnosti-
cian."
He was, too— I give him full credit for
that He was a good, keen, close diagnosti-
cian. How did he know I had only fifteen
119]
^^ speaking of Operatmns — "
dollars on me? You did not have to tell
this man what you had, or how much* He
knew without being told.
I asked whether he was acquainted with
Doctor Y — Y being a person whom I had
met casually at a club to which I belong.
Oh, yes, he said, he knew Doctor Y. Y
was a clever man, X said — ^very, very clever;
but Y specialized in the eyes, the ears, the
nose and the throat. I gathered from what
Doctor X said that any time Doctor Y
ventured below the thorax he was out of
bounds and liable to be penalized ; and that
if by any chance he strayed down as far
as the lungs he would call for help and
back out as rapidly as possible.
This was news to me. It would appear
that these up-to-date practitioners just go
ahead and divide you up and partition you
out among themselves without saying any-
thing to you about it. Your torso belongs
to one man and your legs are the exclusive
property of his brother practitioner down
on the next block, and so on. You may
belong to as many as half a dozen special-
ists, most of whom, very possibly, are total
[201
^^ speaking of Operations — "
Strangers to you, and yet nerer know a thing
about it yourself.
It has rather the air of trespass — nay,
more than that, it bears some of the aspects
of unlawful entry — ^but I suppose it is legal.
Certainly, judging by what I am able to
learn, the system is being carried on gener-i
ally. So it must be ethical.
Anything doctors do in a mass is ethical.
Almost anything they do singly and on in-
dividual responsibility is unethical. Being
ethical among doctors is practically the
same thing as being a Democrat in Texas
or a Presbyterian in Scotland.
"Y will never do for you," said Doctor
Xy when I had rallied somewhat from the
shock of these disclosures. ^'I would sug-
gest that you go to Doctor Z, at such-and-
such an address. You are exactly in Z's
line. I'll let him know that you are com-
ing and when, and I'll send him down my
diagnosis."
So that same afternoon, the appointment
having been made by telephone, I went, full
of quavery emotions, to Doctor Z's place.
As soon as I was inside his outer hallway
1 21 J
^^ speaking of Operations — '*
I realized that I was nearing the presence
of one highly distinguished in his profes-
sion.
A pussy-footed male attendant, in a livery
that made him look like a cross between
a headwaiter and an undertaker's assistant,
escorted me through an anteroom into a
reception-room, where a considerable num-
ber of well-dressed men and women were
sitting about in strained attitudes, pretend-
ing to read magazines while they waited
their tums, but in reality furtively watch-
ing one another.
I sat down in a convenient chair, adher-
ing fast to my hat and my umbrella. They
were the only friends I had there and I
was determined not to lose them without
a struggle. On the wall were many colored
charts showing various portions of the hu-
man anatomy and what ailed them. Directly
in front of me was a very thrilling illus-
tration, evidently copied from an oil paint-
ing, of a liver in a bad state of repair. I
said to myself that if I had a liver like
that one I should keep it hidden from the
public eye — I would never permit it to sit
[221
i>ilW nil Will' ' '^'•'^
T:if. NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LCSOI I
jTIL::iif-^ s-.-.mj n dationU
\
^^ speaking of Operations — "
for its portrait Still, there is no account-
ing for tastes. I know a man who got his
spleen back from the doctors and now keeps
it in a bottle of alcohol on the what-not in
the parlor, as one of his most treasured
possessions, and Sometimes shows it to visi-
tors. He, however, is of a very saving dis-
position.
Presently a lady secretary, who sat be-
hind a roll-top desk in a corner of the room,
lifted a forefinger and silently beckoned
me to her side. I moved over and sat down
by her; she took down my name and my
age and my weight and my height, and a
number of other interesting facts that will
come in very handy should anyone ever be
moved to write a complete history of my
early life. In common with Doctor X she
shared one attribute — she manifested a
deep curiosity regarding my forefathers-
wanted to know all about them. I felt that
this was carrying the thing too far. I felt
like saying to her:
"Miss or madam, so far as I know there
is nothing the matter with my ancestors of
the second and third generations back, ex-
[23]
^'^^ Speaking of Operations — "
cept that they are dead. I am not here
to seek medical assistance for a grandparent
who succumbed to disappointment that
time when Samuel J. Tilden got counted
out, or for a great-grandparent who entered
into Eternal Rest very unexpectedly and in
a manner entirely uncalled for as a result
of being an innocent bystander in one of
those feuds that were so popular in my
native state immediately following the
Mexican War. Leave my ancestors alone.
There is no need of your shaking my family
tree in the belief that a few overripe pa-
tients will fall out. I alone — I, me, myself
— am the present candidate!"
However, I refrained from making this
protest audibly. I judged she was only go-
ing according to the ritual ; and as she had
a printed card, with blanks in it ready to
be filled out with details regarding the re-
mote members of the family connection, I
humored her along.
When I could not remember something
she wished to know concerning an ancestor
I supplied her widi thrilling details culled
from the field of fancy. When the card
[24]
^^ speaking of Operations — **
was entirely filled up she sent me back to
my old place to wait I waited and waited,
breeding fresh ailments all the time. I
had started out with one symptom; now if
I had one I had a million and a half. I
could feel goose flesh sprouting out all over
me. If I had been taller I might have
had more, but not otherwise. Such is the
power of the human imagination when the
surroundings are favorable to its develop-
ment.
Time passed; to me it appeared that
nearly all the time there was passed and
that we were getting along toward the
shank-end of the Christian era mighty fast.
I was afraid my tum would come next
and afraid it would not Perhaps you know
this sensation. You get it at the dentist's,
and when you are on the list of after-dinner
speakers at a large banquet, and when you
arc waiting for the father of the Only Girl
in the World to make up his mind whether
he is willing to try to endure you as a son-
in-law.
Then some more time passed.
One by one my companions^ obeying a
1251
^^ speaking of Operations — "
command, passed out through the door at
the back, vanishing out of my life forever.
None of them returned. I was vaguely
wondering whether Doctor Z buried his
dead on the premises or had them removed
by a secret passageway in the rear, when
a young woman in a nurse's costume tapped
me on the shoulder from behind.
I jumped. She hid a compassionate
smile with her hand and told me that thf
doctor would see me now.
As I rose to follow her — ^still clinging
with the drowning man's grip of despera-
tion to my hat and my umbrella— I was
astonished to note by a glance at the cal-
endar on the wall that this was still the
present date. I thought it would be Thurs-
day of next week at the very least.
Doctor Z also wore whiskers, carefully
pointed up by an expert hedge trimmer.
He sat at his desk, surrounded by freewill
offerings from grateful patients and by
glass cases containing other things he had
taken away from them when they were not
in a condition to object. I had expected,
after all the preliminary ceremonies and
[26]
*^ Speaking of Operations — '*
delays, that we should have a long seance
together. Not so ; not at all. The modern
expert in surgery charges as much for re-
membering your name between visits as the
family doctor used to expect for staying
up all night with you, but he does not
waste any time when you are in his pres-
ence.
I was about to find that out And a little
later on I was to find out a lot of other
things; in fact, that whole week was of
immense educational value to nie.
I presume it was because he stood so
high in his profession, and was almost con-
stantly engaged in going into the best so-
ciety that Doctor Z did not appear to be
the least bit excited over my having picked
him out to look into me. In the most per-
functory manner he shook the hand that
has shaken the hands of Jess Willard,
George M. Cohan and Henry Ford, and
bade me be seated in a chair which was
drawn up in a strong light, where he might
gaze directly at me as we conversed and
so get the full values of the composition.
But if I was a treat for him to look at he
concealed his feelings very eflfectually.
[27}
^^ Speaking of Operations — "
He certainly had his emotions under
splendid control. But then, of course, you
must remember that he probably had
traveled about extensively and v^ras used to
sight-seeing.
From this point on everything passed off
in a most businesslike manner. He reached
into a filing cabinet and took out an ex-
hibity which I recognized as the same one
his secretary had filled out in the early
part of the century. So I was already in
the card-index class. Then briefly he
looked over the manifest that Doctor X
had sent him. It may not have been a
manifest — it may have been an invoice or
a bill of lading. Anyhow, I was in the as-
signee's hands. I could only hope it would
not eventually become necessary to call in
a receiver. Then he spoke:
"Yes, yes-yes," he said; "yes-yes-yes 1
Operation required. Small matter — ^hum,
hum! Let's see — this is Tuesday? Quite
so. Do it Friday I Friday at" — he glanced
toward a scribbled pad of engagement
dates at his elbow — "Friday at seven A. M.
[28]
^^ speaking of Operations — "
No; make it seven-fifteen. Have impor-
tant tumor case at seven. St. Germicide's
Hospital. You know the place? — ^up on
Umpty-umph Street. Go' day! Miss Who-
ziz, call next visitor."
And before I realized that practically
the whole affair had been settled I was
outside the consultation- room in a small
private hall, and the secretary was telling
me further details would be conveyed to
me by mail. I went home in a dazed state.
For the first time I was beginning to leam
something about an industry in which here-
tofore I had never been interested. Espe-
cially was I struck by the difference now re-
vealed to me in the preliminary stages of
the surgeons' business as compared with
their fellow experts in the allied cutting
trades — tailors, for instance, not to mention
barbers. Every barber, you know, used to
be a surgeon, only he spelled it chirurgeon.
Since then the two professions have drifted
far apart. Even a half-witted barber — the
kind who always has the first chair as you
come into the shop — can easily spend ten
minutes of your time thinking of things he
[291
^^ speaking of Operations — "
thinks you should have and mentioning
them to you one by one, whereas any good,
live surgeon knows what you have almost
instantly.
As for the tailor — consider how weari-
some are his methods when you parallel
them alongside the tremendous advances
in this direction made by the surgeon —
how cumbersome and old-fashioned and
tedious 1 Why, an experienced surgeon has
you all apart in half the time the tailor
takes up in deciding whether the vest shall
fasten with five buttons or six. Our own
domestic tailors are bad enough in this re«
gard and the Old World tailors are even
worse.
I remember a German tailor in Aix-la-
Chapelle in the fall of 19 14 who under-
took to build for me a suit suitable for
visiting the battle lines informally. He
was the most literary tailor I ever met any-
where. He would drape the material over
my person and then take a piece of chalk
and write quite a nice long piece on me.
Then he would rub it out and write it all
over again, but more fully. He kept this
1301
^'Speaking of Operations' — "
up at intervals of every other day until he
had writer's cramp. After that he used
pins. He would pin the seams together,
uttering little soothing, clucking sounds in
German whenever a pin went through the
goods and into me. The German cluck is
not so soothing as the cluck of the English-
speaking peoples, I find.
At the end of two long and trying weeks,
which wore both of us down noticeably, he
had the job done. It was not an unquali-
fied success. He regarded is z% a suit of
clothes, but I knew better; it was a set of
slip covers, and if only I had been a two-
seated runabout it would have proved a
perfect fit, I am sure; but I am a single-
seated design and it did not answer. I
wore it to the war because I had nothing
else to wear that would stamp me as a
regular war correspondent, except, of
course, my wrist watch; but I shall not
wear it to another war. War is terrible
enough already; and, besides, I have parted
with it. On my way home through Hol-
land I gave that suit to a couple of poor
Belgian refugees, and I presume they are
still wearing it
1311
^ ^speaking of Operations "
So far as I have been able to obsenrc,
the surgeons and the tailors of these times
share but one common instinct: If you go
to a new surgeon or to a new tailor he
is morally certain, after looking you over,
that the last surgeon you had, or the last
tailor, did not do your cutting properly.
There, however, is where the resemblance
ends. The tailor, as I remarked in effect
just now, wants an hour at least in which
to decide how he may best cover up and
disguise the irregularities of the human
form; in much less time than that the
surgeon has completely altered the form it-
self.
With the surgeon it is very much as it
IS with those learned men who write those
large, impressive works of reference which
should be permanently in every library,
and which we are forever buying from an
agent because we are so passionately ad-
dicted to payments. If the thing he seeks
does not appear in the contents proper he
knows exactly where to look for it. "See
appendix," says the historian to you in a
footnote. ^^See appendix," 8a3r8 the surgeon
[321
^^ speaking of Operations — "
to himself, the while humming a cheery
refrain. And so he does.
Well, I went home. This was Tuesday
and the operation was not to be performed
until the coming Friday. By Wednesday
I had calmed down considerably. By
Thursday morning I was practically nor-
mal again as regards my nerves. You will
understand that I was still in a state of
blissful ignorance concerning the actual
methods of the surgical profession as ex-
emplified by its leading exponents of to-
day. The knowledge I hJVc touched on
in the pages immediately preceding was to
come to me later.
Likewise Doctor Z's manner had been
deceiving. It could not be that he meant
to carve me to any really noticeable extent
— ^his attitude had been entirely too casual.
At our house carving is a very serious mat-
ter. Any time I take the head of the table
and start in to carve it is fitting to remove
the women and children to a place of safety,
and onlookers should get under the table.
When we first began housekeeping and
gave our first small dinner-party we had
1 33 J
^^ Speaking of Operations — "
a brace of ducks cooked in honor of the
company, and I, as host, undertook to carve
them. I never knew until then that a duck
was built like a watch — that his works were
inclosed in a burglarproof case. Without
the use of dynamite the Red Leary-O'Brien
gang could not have broken into those
ducks. I thought so then and I think so
yet Years have passed since then, but I
may state that even now, when there are
guests for dinner, we do not have ducks.
Unless somebody else is going to carve, wc
have liver.
I mention this fact in passing because
it shows that I had learned to revere carv-
ing as one of the higher arts, and one not
to be approached except in a spirit of due
appreciation of the magnitude of the under-
taking, and after proper consideration and
thought and reflection, and all that sort of
thing.
If this were true as regards a mere duck^
why not all the more so as regards the carv-
ing of a person of whom I am so very fond
as I am of myself? Thus I reasoned. And
finally, had not Doctor Z spoken ol the
134] JL
^^ speaking of Operations "
coming operation as a small matter. Welt
then?
Thursday at noon I received from Doc-
tor Z's secretary a note stating that ar-
rangements had been made for my admis-
sion into St. Germicide that same evening
and that I was to spend the night there.
This hardly seemed necessary. Still, the
tone of the note appeared to indicate
that the hospital authorities particularly
wished to have me for an overnight guest;
^ and as I reflected that probably the poor
things had few enough bright spots in their
busy lives, I decided I would humor them
alpng and gladden the occasion with my
presence from dinner-time on.
About eight o'clock I strolled in very
jauntily. In my mind I had the whole
programme mapped out I would stay at
the hospital for, say, two days following the
operation — or, at most, three. Then I must
be up and away. ^ I had a good deal of
work to do and a number of people to see
on important business, and I could not
really afford to waste more than a week-
end on the staff of St Germicide's. After
135]
y'*
^^ speaking of Operations — "
Monday they must look to their own de-
vices for social entertainment. That was
my idea. Now when I look back on it t
laugh, but it is a hollow laugh and there
is no real merriment in it.
Indeed, almost from the moment of my
entrance little things began to come up that
were calculated to have a depressing effect
on one's spirits. Downstairs a serious-look-
ing lady met me and entered in a book a
number of salient facts regarding my per-
sonality which the previous investigators
had somehow overlooked. There is a lot
of bookkeeping about an operation. This
detail attended to, a young man, dressed
in white garments and wearing an expres-
sion that stamped him as one who had suf-
fered a recent deep bereavement came and
relieved me of my hand bag and escorted
me upstairs.
As we passed through the upper corri-
dors I had my first introduction to th«
hospital smell, which is a smell com-
pounded of iodoform, ether, gruel, and
something boiling. All hospitals have it,
[361
^^ Speaking of Operations — "
I understand. In time you get used to it»
but you never really care for it
The young man led me into a small room
tastefully decorated with four walls, a floor,
a ceiling, a window sill and a window, a
door and a doorsill, and a bed and a chain
He told me to go to bed. I did not want
to go to bed — it was not my regular bed-
time — ^but he made a point of it, and I
judged it was according to regulations; so
I undressed and put on my night clothes
and crawled in. He left me, taking my
other clothes and my shoes with him, but
I was not allowed to get lonely.
A little later a ward surgeon appeared,
to put a few inquiries of a pointed and per-
sonal nature. He particularly desired to
know what my trouble was. I explained
to him that I couldn't tell him — he would
have to sec Doctor X or Doctor Z; they
probably knew, but were keeping it a secret
between themselves.
The answer apparently satisfied him, be-
cause immediately after that he made me
eign a paper in which I assumed all respon-
sibility for what was to take place the next
moramg.
137]
* ^speaking of Operations ^^
This did not seem exactly fair. 'As I
pointed out to him, it was the surgeon's
affair, not mine; and if the surgeon made
a mistake the joke would be on him and
not on me, because in that case I would not
be here anyhow. But I signed, as re*
quested, on the dotted line, and he de«
parted.
After that, at intervals, the chief house
surgeon dropped in, without knocking, and
the head nurse came, and an interne or sa,
and a ward nurse, and the special nurse
who was to have direct charge of me. It
dawned on me that I was not having any
more privacy in that hospital than a gold<*
fish.
About eleven o'clock an orderly came,
and, without consulting my wishes in the
matter, he undressed me until I could have
passed almost anywhere for September
Morn's father, and gave me a dean shave,
twice over, on one of my most prominent
plane surfaces. I must confess I enjoyed
that part of it So far as I am able to
recall, it was the only shave I have ever
had where the operator did not spray me
[381
^^ Speaking of Operations — ^^
with cheap perfumery afterward and then
try to sell me a bottle of hair tonic*
Haying shaved me, the young man did
me up amidships in a neat cloth parcel,
took his kit under his arm and went away.
It occurred to me that, considering the
tririal nature of the case, a good deal of
fuss was being made over me by persons
who could have no personal concern in the
matter whatsoever. This thouj§;ht recurred
to me frequently as I lay there, all tied in
a bundle like a week's washing. I did not
feel quite so uppish as I had felt. Why
was everybody picking on me?
S^on I slept, but dreamed fitfully. I
dreamed that a whole flock of surgeons
came to my bedside and charted mie out in
sections, like one of those diagram pictures
you see of a beef in the Handy Compen-
dium of Universal Knowledge, showing
the various cuts and the butcher's pet name
for each cut Each man took his favorite
joint and carried it away, and when they
were all gone I was merely a recent site,
full of reverberating echoes and nothing
else.
[391
' ^Speaking of Operations ' '
mm
I have had happier dreams in my time;
this was not the kind of dream I should
hare selected had the choice been left to
me.
When I woke the young sun was shining
in at the window, and an orderly — not the
orderly who had shared me, ^but another
one — ^was there in my room and my nurse
was waiting outside the door. The orderly y
dressed me in a quaint suit of pyjamas cut
on the half shell and buttoning stylishly in
the back, princesse mode. Then he rolled
in a flat litter on wheels and stretched me
on it, and covered me up with a white table-
cloth, just as though I had been cold Sun-
day-night supper, and we started for the
operating-room at the top of the building;
but before we started I lit a large black
cigar, as Gen. U. S. Grant used to do when
he went into battle. I wished by this to
show how indifferent I was. Maybe he
fooled somebody, but I do not believe I
possess the same powers of simulation that
Grant had. He must have been a very re*
markable man — ^Grant must
The orderly and the nurse trundled me
1401
^^ speaking of Operations — ^*
out into the hall and loaded me into an
elevator, which was to carry us up to the
top of the hospital. Several other nurses
were already in the elevator. As we came
aboard one of them remarked that it was a
fine day. A fine day for what? She did
not finish the sentence.
Everybody wore a serious look. Inside
of myself I felt pretty serious too — serious
enough for ten or twelve. I had meant to
fling off several very bright, spontaneous
quips on the way to the table. I thought
them out in advance, but now, somehow,
none of them seemed appropriate. In-
stinctively, as it were, I felt that humor
was out of place here.
I never knew an elevator to progress
from the third floor of a building to the
ninth with such celerity as this one on
which we were traveling progressed. Per-
sonally I was in no mood for haste. If
there was anyone else in all that great
hospital who was in a particular hurry to
be operated on I was perfectly willing to
wait But alas, no I The mechanism of the
elevator was in perfect order— -entirely too
/
* ^speaking of Operations **
perfect No accident of any character what-
soever befell us en route, no dropping back
into the basement with a low, grateful
thud ; no hitch ; no delay of any kind. We
were certainly out of luck that trip. The
demon of a joyrider who operated the ac^^
cursed device jerked a lever and up we
soared at a distressingly high rate of speed.
If I could have had my way about that
youth he would have been arrested for
speeding.
Now we were there! They rolled me
into a large room, all white, with a rounded
ceiling like the inside of an egg. Ri^t
away I knew what the feelings of a poor,
lonely little yolk are when the spoon begins
to chip the shell. If I had not been so busy
feeling sorry for myself I think I might
have developed quite an active sympathy
for yolks.
My impression had been that this was to
be in the nature of a private affair^ with-
out invitations. I was astonished to note
that quite a crowd had assembled for the
opening exercises. From his attire ?ind
general deportment I judged that Doctor
[42]
' ^Speaking of Operations ' '
«■
Z was going to be the master of the revels,
he being attired appropriately in a white
domino, with rubber gloves and a fancy cap
of crash toweling. There were present,
also, my diagnostic friend, Doctor X, like*
wise in fancy-dress costume, and a surgeon
I had never met From what I could
gather he was going over the course behind
Doctor Z to replace the divots.
And there was an interne in the back-
ground, playing caddy, as it were, and a
head nurse, who was going to keep the
score, and two other nurses, who were go-
ing to help her keep it. I only hoped that
they would show no partiality, but be as
fair to me as they were to Doctor Z, and
that he would go round in par.
So they placed me right where my eyes
' might rest on a large wall cabinet full of
very shiny-looking tools; and they took my
cigar away from me and folded my hands
on the wide bowknot of my sash. Then
they put a cloth dingus over my face and
a voice of authority told me to breathe.
That advice, however, was superfluous and
might just as well have been omitted, for
^^ Speaking of Operations-^'*
such was my purpose anyhow. Ever since
I can recall anything at all, breathing has
been a regular habit with me. So I
breathed. And, at that, a bottle of highly
charged sarsaparilla exploded somewhere
in the immediate vicinity and most Of its
contents went up my nose.
I started to tell them that somebody had
been fooling with their ether and adulterat-
ing it, and that if they thought they could
send me off to sleep with soda pop they
were making the mistake of their lives, be«^
cause it just naturally could not be done;
but for some reason or other I decided to
put off speaking about the matter for a
few minutes. I breathed again — ^again—
agai
I was going away from there. I was in
a large gas balloon, soaring up into the
clouds. How pleasant! . . . No, by Jove I
I was not in a balloon — I myself was the
balloon, which was not quite so pleasant
Besides, Doctor Z was going along as a
passenger; and as we traveled up and up
he kept jabbing me in the midriff with the
ferrule of a large umbrella which he had
1441
^^ Speaking of Operations — "
brought along with him in case of rain.
He jabbed me harder and harder. I re-
monstrated with him. I told him I was a bit
tender in that locality and the ferrule of
his umbrella was sharp. He would* not
listen. He kept on jabbing me. . . .
Something broke 1 We started back down
to earth. We fell faster and faster. We
fell nine miles, and after that I began to
get used to it. Then I saw the earth be-
neath and it was rising up to meet us.
A town was below — a town that grew
larger and larger as we neared it. I could
make out the bonded indebtedness, and the
Carnegie Library, and the moving-picture
palaces, and the new dancing parlor, and
other principal points of interest
At the rate we were falling we were cer-
tainly going to make an awful splatter in
that town when we hit. I was sorry for
the street-cleaning department.
We fell another half mile or so. A spire
was sticking up into the sky directly ber
neath us, like a spear, to impale us. By a
supreme effort I twisted out of the way of
that spire, only to strike squarely on top of
1451
^^ Speaking of Operations — "
the roof of a greenhouse back of the par-
fionage, next door. We crashed through it
with a perfectly terrific clatter of breaking
glass and landed in a bed of white flowers^
all soft and downy , like feathers.
And then Doctor Z stood up and combed
the debris out of his whiskers and remarked
that, taking it by and large, it had been one
of the pleasantest little outings he had en-
joyed in the entire course of his practice.
He said that as a patient I was fair, but
as a balloon I was immense. Me asked me
whether I had seen anything of his um-
brella and began looking round for it. I
tried to help him look, but I was too tired
to exert myself much. I told him I be-
lieved I would take a little nap.
I opened a dizzy eye part way. So this
was heaven — this white expanse that swung
and swam before my languid gaze? No, .
it could not be — it did not smell like heaven.
It smelled like a hospital. It was a hospi-
tal. It was my hospital. My nurse was
bending over me and I caught a faint whiff
of the starch in the front of her crisp blue
blouse. She was two-headed for the mo-
14^1,
* * Speaking of Operations — ' '
ment, but that was a mere detail. She set-
tled a pillow under my head and told me
to lie quiet
I meant to lie quiet; I did not hare to
be told. I wanted to lie quiet and hurt
I was hurty from head to toe and back
again, and crosswise and eater-cornered.
I hurt diagonally and lengthwise and on
the bias. I had a taste in my mouth like
a bird-and-animal store. And empty 1 It
seemed to me those doctors had not left
anything inside of me except the acoustics.
Well, there was a mite of consolation there.
If the overhauling had been as thorough
as I had reason to believe it was from my
present sensations, I need never fear catch-
ing anything again so long as I lived, ex-
cept possibly dandruff.
I waved the nurse away. I craved soli-
tude. I desired only to lie there in that
bed and hurt — ^which I did.
I had said beforehand I meant to stay in
St Germicide's for two or three days only.
It is when I look back on that resolution
I emit the hollow laugh elsewhere referred
to. For exactly four weeks I was flat on
147]
' * Speaking of Operations — - ' '
■^— — ■ . ■■III! I I — 11^
my back. I know now how excessively
wearied a man can get of his own back,
how tired of it, how bored with it! And
after that another two weeks elapsed before
my legs became the same dependable pair
of legs I had known in the past.
I did not want to eat at first, and when
I did begin to want to they would not let
me. If I felt sort of peckish they let me
suck a little glass thermometer, but there
is not much nourishment really in thermo-
meters. And for entertainment, to wile the
dragging hours away, I could count the
cracl^ in the ceiling and read my tempera-
ture chart, which was a good deal like Red
Ames' batting average for the past season
— ranging from ninety-nine to one hundred
and four.
Also, through daily conversations with
my nurse and with the surgeons who
dropped in from time to time to have a
look at me, I learned, as I lay there, a great
deal about the medical profession — that is,
a great deal for a layman — and what I
learned filled me with an abiding admira-
tion for it, both as a science and as a busi-
[48]
^^ Speaking of Operations — "
^— — ^^— I ^^—■^■^MM»MM»»——— —————— li—I^M<
ness. This surely is one profession which
ever keeps its face to the front. Burying
its past mistakes and forgetting them as
speedily as possible, it pushes straight for-
ward into fresh fields^ and fresh patients,
always hopeful of what the future may
bring in the way of newly discovered and
highly expensive ailments. As we look
backward upon the centuries we are as-
tonished by its advancement. I did a good
deal of looking backwards upon the cen-
turies during my sojourn at St. Germi-
cide's.
Take the Middle Ages now — the period
when a barber and a surgeon were one and
the same. If a man made a failure as a
barber he turned his talents to surgery.
Surgeons in those times were a husky breed.
I judge they worked by the day instead of
by piecework; anyhow the records show
they were very fond of experiments, where
somebody else furnished the raw material.
When there came a resounding knock at
the tradesman's entrance of the moated
grange, the lord of the manor, looking over
the portcullis and seeing a lusty wight
* ^Speaking of Operations ' '
t^m
Standing down below, in a leather apron,
with his sleeves rolled up and a kit of
soldering tools under his arm, didn't know
until he made inquiry whether the gentle
stranger had come to mend the drain or
remove the cook's leg.
A little later along, when gunpowder
had come into general use as a humanizing
factor of civilization, surgeons treated a
gunshot wound by pouring boiling lard
into it, which I would say was calculated
to take the victim's mind off his wound and
give him something else to think about —
for the time being, anyhow. I assume the
notion of applying a mustard plaster out-
side one's stomach when one has a pain in-
side one's stomach is based on the same
principle.
However, one doesn't have to go clear
back to medieval times to note the radical
differences in the plan of treating human
ailments. A great many persons who are
still living can remember when the doctors
were not nearly so numerous as they are
now. I, for one, would be the last to re-
verse the sentence and say that because the
[50 J
^^ Speaking of Operations — '*
doctors were not nearly so numerous then
as they are now, those persons are still liv-
ing so numerously.
In the spring of the year, when the sap
flowed and the birds mated, the sturdy
farmer felt that he was due to have some-
thing the matter with him, too. So he
would ride into the country-seat and get
an almanac. Doubtless the reader, if
country raised, has seen copies of this popu-
lar work. On the outside cover, which was
dark blue in color, there was a picture of
a person whose stomach was sliced four
ways, like a twenty-cent pie, and then
folded back neatly, thus exposing his en-
tire interior arrangements to the gaze of
the casual observer. However, this party,
judging by his picture, did not appear to
be suffering. He did not even seem to fear
that he might catch cold from standing
there in his own draught. He was gazing
off into space in an absent-minded kind of
way, apparently not aware that anything
was wrong with him; and on all sides he
was surrounded by interesting exhibits, such
as a crab, and a scorpion, and a goat, and a
[51]
* * Speaking of Operations — ' *
chap with a bow and arrow — and one thing
and another.
Such was the main design of the cover,
while the contents were made up of rec-
ognized and standard varieties in the line
of jokes and the line of diseases which al-
ternated, with first a favorite joke and then
a favorite disease. The author who wrotCs^
the descriptions of the diseases was one of
the most convincing writers that ever lived
an3rwhere. As a realist he had no superiors
among those using our language as a
vehicle for the expression of thought. He
was a wonder. If a person wasn't particu-
lar about what ailed him he could read
any page at random and have one specific
disease. Or he could read the whole book
through and have them all, in their most
advanced stages. Then the only thing that
could save him was a large dollar bottle.
Again, in attacks of the breakbone ague
or malaria it was customary to call in a
local practitioner, generally an elderly lady
of the neighborhood, who had none of these
latter-day prejudices regarding the use of
tobacco by the gentler sex. One whom I
[521
\
\
*'^ Speaking of Operations — "
distantly recall^ among childhood's happy
memories, carried this liberal-mindedness
to a point where she not only dipped snuff
and smoked a cob pipe, but sometimes
chewed a little natural leaf. This lady, on
being called in, would brew up a large
caldron of medicinal roots and barks and
sprouts and things; and then she would
deluge the interior of the sufferer with a
large gourdful of this pleasing mixture at
regular intervals. It was efficacious, too.
The inundated person either got well or
else he drowned from the inside. Rocking
the patient was almost as dangerous a pas-
time as rocking the boat. This also helps
to explain, I think, why so many of our
forebears had floating kidneys. There was
nothing else for a kidney to do.
By the time I attained to long trousers,
people in our town mainly had outgrown
the unlicensed expert and were depending
more and more upon the old-fashioned
family doctor — the one with the whisker-
jungle — ^who drove about in a gig, accom-
panied by a haunting aroma of iodoform
and carrying his calomel with him in bulk.
153]
^^ Speaking of Operations — "
He probably owned a secret calomel
mine of his own. He must have; other-
wise he could never have afforded to be
so generous with it He also had other
medicines with him, all of them being
selected on the principle that unless a drug
tasted like the very dickens it couldn't pos*
sibly do you any good. At all hours of
the day and night he was to be seen going
to and fro, distributing nuggets from his
private lode. He went to bed with his
trousers and his hat on, I think, and there
was a general belief that his old mare slept
between the shafts of the gig, with the
bridle shoved up on her forehead.
It has been only a few years since the
old time general practitioner was every-
where. Just look round and see now how
the system has changed I If your liver be-
gins to misconduct itself the first thought
of the modem operator is to cut it out and
hide it some place where you can't find
it. The oldtimer would have bombarded
it with a large brunette pill about the size
and color of a damson plum. Or he might
put you on a diet of molasses seasoned to
r54)
' ^Speaking of Operations ' '
^
taste with blue mass and quinine and other
attractive condiments. Likewise, in the
spring of the year he frequently anointed
the young of the species with a mixture of
mutton suet and asafetida. This treatment
had an effect that was distinctly depressing
upon the growing boy. It militated against
his popularity. It forced him to seek his
pleasures outdoors, and a good distance
outdoors at that.
It was very hard for a boy, however
naturally attractive he might be, to retain
his popularity at the fireside circle when
coated with mutton suet and asafetida and
then taken into a warm room. He attracted
attention which he did not court and which
was distasteful to him. Keeping quiet did
not seem to help him any. Even if they
had been blindfolded others would still
have felt his presence. A civit-cat suffers
from the same drawbacks in a social way,
but the advantage to the civit-cat is that
as a general thing it associates only with
other civit-cats.
Except in the country the old-time, catch*
fis-catch-can general practitioner appears ta
[55]
^^ speaking of Operations — "
be dying out In the city one finds him oc*
casionally, playing a limit game in an office
on a back street — two dollars to come in,
five to call; but the tendency of the day is
toward specialists. Hence the expert who
treats you for just one particular thing.
With a pain in your chest, say, you go to
a chest specialist. So long as he can keep
the trouble confined to your chest, all well
and good. If it slips down or slides up
he tries to coax it back to the reservation.
If it refuses to do so, he bids it an affection-
ate adieu, makes a dotted mark on you to
•how where he left off, collects his bill and
regretfully turns you over to a stomach
specialist or a throat specialist, depending
on the direction in which the trouble was
headed when last seen.
Or, perhaps the specialist to whom you
take your custom is an advocate of an im-
mediate operation for such cases as yours
and all others. I may be unduly sensitive
on account of having recently emerged
from the surgeon's hands, but it strikes me
now that there are an awful lot of doctors
who take one brief glance at a person who
is complaining, and say to themselves that
1561
^1
^^ speaking of Operations — "
here is something that ought to be looked
into right away — and immediately open a
bag and start picking out the proper utensils.
You go into a doctor's office and tell him
you do not feel the best in the world — and
he gives you a look and excuses himself,
and steps into the next room and begins
greasing a saw.
Mind youy in these casual observations
as compiled by me while bedfast and here
given utterance, I am not seeking to dis-
parage possibly the noblest of professions.
Lately I have owed much to it. I am
strictly on the doctors side. He is with us
when we come into the world and with us
when we go out of it, oftentimes lending a
helping hand on both occasions. Anyway,
our sjnmpathies should especially go out to
the medical profession at this particular
time when the anti-vivisectionists are railing
80 loudly against the doctors. The anti-
vivisection crusade has enlisted widely dif-
ferent classes in the community, including
many lovers of our dumb-animal pets —
and aren't some of them the dumbest things
you ever saw I— especially chow dogs and
love birds.
1571
^^ speaking of Operations — ' '
I will admit there is something to be said
on both sides of the argument This dis-
secting of live subjects may have been
carried to extremes on occasions. When I
read in the medical journals that the emin-
ent Doctor Somebody succeeded in trans-
ferring the interior department of a peli-
can to a pointer pup, and vice versa, with
such success that the pup drowned while
diving for minnows, and the pelican went
out in the back yard and barked himself
to death baying at the moon, I am in-
terested naturally; but, possibly because of
my ignorance, I fail to see wherein the
treatment of infantile paralysis has been
materially advanced. On the other hand,
I would rather the kind and gentle Belgian
hare should be offered up as a sacrifice
upon the operating table and leave behind
him a large family of little Belgian heirs
and heiresses — dependent upon the charity
of a cruel world — than that I should have
something painful which can be avoided
through making him a martyr. I would
rather any white rabbit on earth should
have the Asiatic cholera twice than that
I ibould have it just once. These are my
1581
* ^Speaking of Operations — "
sincere convictions, and I will not attempt
to disguise them.
Thanks too, to medical science we know
about germs and serums and diets and all
that Our less fortunate ancestors didn't
know about them. They were befogged in
ignorance. As recently as the generation
immediately preceding ours people were
unacquainted with the simplest rules of
hygiene. They didn't care whether the
housefly wiped his feet before he came into
the house or not. The gentleman with the
drooping, cream-separator mustache was
at perfect liberty to use the common drink-
ing cup on the railroad train. The ap-
pendix lurked in its snug retreat, undis-
turbed by the prying fingers of curiosity.
The fever-bearing skeeter buzzed and
flitted, stinging where he pleased. The
germ theory was unfathomed. Suitable
food for an invalid was anything the in-
valid could aflford to buy. Fresh air, and
more especially fresh night air, was re^
garded as dangerous, and people hermet-
ically sealed themselves in before retiring.
Not daily as at present was the world glad-
dened by the tidings that science had un-
159] ^ , o^q;
* ^speaking of Operations ^ ^
earthed some new and particularly unpleas-
ant disease. It never occurred to a mother
that she should sterilize the slipper before
spanking her offspring. Babies were not
reared antiseptically, but just so. Nobody
was aware of microbes.
In short, our sires and our grandsires
abode in the midst of perils. They were
surrounded on all sides by things that are
immediately fatal to the human system.
Not a single one of them had a right to
pass his second birthday. In the light of
what we know, we realize that by now this
world should be but a barren waste, dotted
at frequent intervals with large graveyards
and populated only by a few dispossessed
and hungry bacteria, hanging over the
cemetery fence singing: Driven From
Home I
In the conditions generally prevalent up
to twenty-five years ago, most of us never
had any license, really, to be born at all.
Yet look how many of us are now here.
In this age of research I hesitate to attempt
to account for it, except on the entirely un-
scientific theory that what you don't know
doesn't hurt you. Doubtless a physician
reoi
^^ speaking of Operations — ^"
could give you a better explanation, but his
would cost you more than mine has.
But we digress. Let us get back to our
main subject, which is myself. I shall
never forget my first real meal in that hos-
pital. There was quite a good deal of talk
about it beforehand. My nurse kept tell-
ing me that on the next day the doctor had
promised I might have something to eat.
I could hardly wait. I had visions of a
tenderloin steak smothered in fried onions,
and some French-fried potatoes, and a tall
table-limit stack of wheat cakes, and a few
other incidental comfits and kickshaws. I
could hardly wait for that meal.
The next day came and she brought it
to me, and I partook thereof. It was the
white of an egg. For dessert I licked a
stamp; but this I did clandestinely and
by stealth, without saying anything about
it to her. I was not supposed to have any
sweets.
On the occasion of the next feast the
diet was varied. I had a sip of one of those
fermented milk products. You probably
know the sort of thing I mean. Even be-
fore youVe swallowed it, it tastes as though
[61]
^^ speaking of Operations — "
it had already disagreed with you* The
nurse said this food was predigested but
did not tell me by whom. Nor did I ask
her. I started to, but thought better of
it. Sometimes one is all the happier for
not knowing too much.
!A. little later on, seeing that I had not
suffered an attack of indigestion from this
debauch, they gave me junket. In the dic-
tionary I have looked up the definitions
of junket. I quote :
Junket, v. 1. 1. To entertain by feasting;
regale. II. i. To give or take part in an
entertainment or excursion; feast in com*
pany; picnic; revel.
Junket, n. A merry feast or excursion ;
picnic.
When the author of a dictionary tries
to be frivolous he only succeeds in making
himself appear foolish*
I know not how it may be in the world
at large, but in a hospital, junket is a cus*
tard that by some subtle process has been
denuded of those ingredients which make
a custard fascinating and exciting. It tastes
as though the eggs, which form its under-
lying basis, had been laid in a fit of pique
1621
' ' speaking of Operations — ' '
by a hen that was sererely upset at the time.
Hereafter when the junket is passed
round somebody else may have my share.
I'll stick to the mince pie a la mode.
And the first cigar of my convalescence
• — ah, that, too, abides as a vivid memory!
Dropping in one morning to replace the
wrappings Doctor Z said I might smoke
in moderation. So the nurse brought me
a cigar, and I lit it and took one deep
puff; but only one. I laid it aside. I said
to the nurse:
^'A mistake has been made here. I do
not want a cooking cigar, you understand.
I desire a cigar for personal use. This one
is full of herbs and simples, I think. It
suggests a New England boiled dinner, and
not a very good New England boiled din-
ner at that. Let us try again."
She brought another cigar. It was not
satisfactory either Then she showed me
the box — an orthodox box containing cigars
of a recognized and previously dependable
brand. I could only conclude that a root-
and-herb doctor had bought an interest in
the business and was introducing his own
pet notions into the formula.
1631
* ' Speaking of Operations — ' '
But came a day — as the fancy writers say
when they wish to convey the impression
that a- day has come, but hate to do it in
a commonplace manner — came a day when
my cigar tasted as a cigar should taste and
food had the proper relish to it) and my
appetite came back again and found the
old home place not so greatly changed
after all.
And then shortly thereafter came another
day, when I, all replete with expensive
stitches, might drape the customary habili*
ments of civilization about my attenuated
frame and go forth to mingle with my fel-
low beings. I have been mingling pretty
steadily ever since, for now I have some-
thing to talk about — a topic good for any
company; congenial, an absorbing topic.
I can spot a brother member a block
away. I hasten up to him and give him
the grand hailing sign of the order. He
opens his mouth to speak, but I beat him
to it.
"Speaking of operations ^^ I say.
Mind then I'm oflF.
Believe me, it's the lifel^^
L64]
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